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WEEK OF MARCH 27, 2025
VOLUME 98 | ISSUE 17
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Metro State University opens Affordable Housing Institute BY NATALIE KERR SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
In 2019, Stacey Berry left Texas with her children to escape a domestic violence situation. She experienced firsthand the importance — and challenge — of accessing affordable housing. Now, as a paralegal, realtor and founder of Harriet’s Liberation Society, an LLC supporting victims of domestic violence, Berry is using her knowledge to give back to women in need. Through Metropolitan State University’s new Affordable Housing Institute program, she is working to connect her realty skills with Denver’s affordable housing industry. “When I heard they had the affordable housing class, I’m like, boom, that is where I can put my real estate license and give back,” said Berry, who is currently in her junior year at MSU. MSU’s Affordable Housing Institute officially launched in January, offering students and community members the opportunity to earn an Affordable Housing Management Certificate by completing courses in real estate, finance and social work. The program was made possible in part through donations from the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, and a seven-figure gift from FHLBank of Topeka. “This partnership with MSU Denver will nurture new talent SEE HOUSING, P4
2025
VOTE NOW March 1st - April 15th
People march in the annual Cesar Chavez Day March in 2022.
COURTESY OF CESAR CHAVEZ PEACE AND JUSTICE COMMITTEE OF DENVER
Cesar Chavez Day parade returns to north Denver This year’s march and mass is organization’s 24th BY ERNEST GURULÉ SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
Speeding down a highway and seeing fields populated with men and women hunched over rows of crops, it is hard to imagine that one of them might one day become an American icon. But it did happen. After toiling in the harshest conditions, burning sun, freezing cold, backbreaking labor and meager pay, Cesar Chavez drew the line and helped tell the story of America’s farmworkers. The Chavez story is complicated. He certainly did tireless work to bring the plight of farm workers to light. He organized, took on the big growers, helped workers earn a deserved dig-
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nity, better working conditions and higher pay. But iconography has a price. Chavez earned the ire of some of those he once worked both with and for. He also won the enmity of others — politicians including former President Ronald Reagan. Chavez and Reagan were committed ideological adversaries. But it is Chavez’s commitment to America’s invisible laborers, service workers and farmworkers, for which he is both remembered and revered. Over the decades of organizing, leading boycotts and standing against American labor bosses and agribusiness, Chavez is today a symbol of humildad y corazon, or humility
and heart. And in Denver and across the nation, he will once again be celebrated. At 8:30 a.m. April 5, there will be a mass and march honoring Chavez. The mass at Regis University’s Saint John’s Chapel will be followed by a march by several hundred young, old, men and women to Cesar Chavez Park at 41st Avenue and Utica Street, said longtime educator and organizer Dr. Ramon Del Castillo. At the park, Del Castillo will be among a handful of speakers. He will also read a poem he has written honoring Chavez, “Una Despedida,” “The Farewell.” Del Castillo, now retired from a career of teaching Chicano Studies at Metropolitan State University-Denver, said the
march, long a tool employed by Chavez to bring attention to farmworkers, represents “a spiritual connection” with Chavez and his cause. “He dedicated his life for the betterment of others,” Del Castillo said. Chavez, who died in 1993, visited Denver a number of times over the years. Del Castillo’s first encounter with him was in the early 1970’s. “We brought him to UNC,” he said. Then, a much younger Del Castillo was heading up a lettuce boycott at the University of Northern Colorado. “There was a lot of animosity,” Del Castillo recalled. SEE PARADE, P4
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